QUESTIONS ON the university’s budget were once again raised during the annual Magtanong sa VP at mga Dekano. The forum, held last February 3, featured discussions on the allocation of the budget, as well as the various improvements made on campus.
Vice President for the Loyola Schools John Paul Vergara presided over the forum, opening with his presentation on improvements made during the past year in line with the proposed budget. These included the upgrade of laboratories and offices and the ongoing John Gokongwei School of Management Student Enterprise Center (JSEC) expansion. (See related story on page 3.)
Vergara said that the overall budget, which is about P1.2 billion, is higher by around 6% due to the increase in both the tuition and student population. He also clarified that a part of the tuition increase, which cannot go beyond a 5% cap, goes to faculty.
“The requirement of CHED (Commission on Higher Education) is that 70% of the increase should go to salaries… and the next would be [scholarships],” Vergara said. He added that since they spent less than expected, the next budget is calculated based on actual expenditures and the inflation rate.
Official budget allocation for salaries and benefits is pegged at 64.34%, while 13.20% is allocated for scholarships. Seventy-eight percent of the total tuition revenue goes to salaries and benefits.
Other issues
Vergara said that he was surprised that questions unrelated to the school’s budget were also raised during the forum. This allowed for announcements and discussions on proposed new changes that will be implemented on campus, as well as improvements on current policies.
Some of these changes include improvements to the enlistment procedure of the university. When asked about the algorithm for the random numbers system, Management Information Systems Office Director Glenn Año said that they were moving to a new server with bigger bandwidth, which will allow for two enlistment batches instead of the current four.
Geraldine Sandrino, Graduate Records Supervisor of the Registrar’s Office, affirmed this, although she said that the switching of servers might not yet happen by the first semester of SY 2012-2013.
The Ateneo Integrated Student Information System (AISIS) will also include online parent access by next year, a feature requested by freshmen’s parents last school year.
For transportation within campus, Vergara said that e-tricycles will be returned to service. The school is also considering making bicycle lanes. To make the campus more pedestrian-friendly, he added that more sidewalks will be made and existing ones will be improved.
Plans for SY 2012-2013
Other scheduled improvements on campus include work on the SEC lecture halls and the Social Sciences Building, the waterproofing of the SEC Walk, additional comfort rooms for the roof decks of the MVP Center for Student Leadership and Leong Hall, electrical provisions for Zen Garden, as well as the creation of the Ateneo Traffic Group.
Chemistry and biology laboratories would undergo another round of renovations, while some faculty areas such as the Philosophy Department’s will be reconfigured and consultation rooms will be fixed. The Bellarmine and De la Costa Halls will also be repainted. Around P12 million is spent annually for repainting buildings.
Vergara also said that he will ensure that some 400 computers will be upgraded at least every four years.
The fine arts theatre planned to be constructed at the site of the old Communication building, originally scheduled to be started this school year, was postponed. Vergara said that they withheld the prepared budget in favor of a larger humanities center to be called the Athenaeum.
Closing the cycle
Vergara said that he was encouraged by the activity during the forum, and thinks it should be held more frequently. “I was thinking that maybe it makes sense for us to have sessions like this outside of the budget cycle… Let’s have it every semester or something, a Magtanong not related to budget.”
The purpose of the forum, Vergara said, is to bring the budgeting process full circle as the administration explained how they addressed the students’ various concerns.
Second Year School of Management (SOM) Central Board Representative Joben Odulio said that at the beginning of the school year, they forwarded students’ concerns to the Budget Committee for consideration. The need of the School of Science and Engineering for laboratory materials, for example, had been forwarded to the committee.
She added that they gave out consultation forms on equipment and improvements to students via their Block Representatives.
Lost opportunity
Despite heavily promoting the forum, Odulio was disappointed with the turnout, which she noted was lower than last year.
“[We] made an effort to have posters in the classrooms, [and four] tarpaulins… We sent letters to each of the org presidents and all of the party premiers or presidents and also to all School Board chairpersons so that they would alert their respective groups about it,” she said.
She added that it was a lost opportunity for students to directly forward their concerns to administrators. “I think [the Sanggunian] should really be more proactive in this; maybe they should be more aggressive in lobbying their concerns.”
Odulio was one of two student representatives to the Budget Committee, the other being outgoing Finance Officer Stephanie Gumaru.
